The Gift
by dragon dreams
Summary: A trip down memory lane through pictures. Series revived! New chapter deals with mischief and a can of paint.
1. At the Naruto Bridge

**Chapter 1: At the Naruto Bridge**

I switch the lamp on and a soft light shine over my small bedroom. I slowly sit on my bed and place down the big scrapbook that I hold in one hand. I then empty the contents of the small box that I hold in my other hand. Several pictures and various odds and ends tumble out of it. I purse my lips as I pick up a random picture and hold it against the light.

The soft glow illuminates three children crowding in the foreground with one adult in the background. All of them sport the insignia of the Hidden Leaf ninja.

The blond boy in the middle is showing a million-watt smile, both hands sporting the universal peace sign. The girl with the pink hair to his right is playfully sticking her tongue out to the camera. The boy with the dark hair at the far left of the frame is looking away from the lens, a blush prominently displayed on his cheeks. The reason for his embarrassment is obviously the forehead protector that all three have worn askew right over their left eyes. The style is clearly copied from the way the adult standing behind them has arranged his own forehead protector. What can be seen of the man shows that he is a full-fledged shinobi, probably the teacher of the younger ninjas. Besides his unusual method of wearing their village's insignia, he is also holding up an orange book that looks like a pornographic novel. His cheeks are flushed but his one visible eye shows immense surprise at what the children in front are doing…

* * *

It had been almost two weeks since the threat to Tazuna's little village had been averted. That meant two weeks of recuperating for the team from the Hidden Leaf village. And two weeks of sheer frustration for Sakura.

"Hey Inari pass me the soy sauce!" yelled Naruto as he paused from his scarfing.

"Sasuke's right in front of it, why don't you ask him?" grumbled Inari.

Blue eyes met black. Heavy, electric silence reigned around the table. Everyone stopped eating—well except for Kakashi who kept on mysteriously shoveling food into his mouth at a speed that defied eye speed—no one could actually see him pushing down the cloth covering half of his face and putting food into his mouth.

Both boys harrumphed and looked away. The tension dissipated. Everyone went back to eating—except for Sakura.

"Naruto…" she growled warningly.

The two had been ignoring each other ever since the bloodbath at the bridge. She didn't know what had happened to make them so uncomfortable with each other. She had tried to ask first Sasuke then Naruto but both boys had somehow decided to keep mum about the issue that plagued them. When she had approached Kakashi, their teacher had just smiled at her and pulled out his worn copy of Come Come Paradise.

Sakura frowned. She knew that whatever it was must have been big to make even Konoha's number one loudmouth mute.

"But Sakura-chan I just wanted some soy sauce," Naruto whined, interrupting her reverie.

"Then get it yourself!" Sakura snapped.

All the secrecy was making her temper towards Naruto's antics even more volatile.

Sasuke took that moment to flick his chopsticks to get a piece of fish. His movement caused the dish containing the condiment to fly in the air straight for Naruto's face. The blond boy yelped and barely managed to catch it before it spilled all its contents on him. He glowered at Sasuke but the dark-haired boy ignored him.

Naruto grumbled under his breath. A maniacal gleam slowly appeared in his eyes. Satisfied of the amount of soy sauce on his fish, he flung the dish straight back at Sasuke's face. The other boy looked like he didn't even notice. At the last minute his hand shot up and his finger snapped the dish down, all without looking up from his food.

"Wow!" Inari shouted, clapping his hands.

"Show off!" Naruto sulked before gobbling down the last of his meal.

Sasuke's lips quirked up slightly as he too finished his food.

"I'm going to train," the two announced simultaneously.

They glared at each other.

"Have fun!" Kakashi said, waving his hand distractedly at them. "Just come back around noon for your shift."

The two continued to glare at each other as they marched out of the house. They paused at the door, then turned their backs at each other and walked in separate directions. Sakura just sighed as she watched them leave.

"C'mon Sakura, we have to leave for our shift," Kakashi said, standing up.

Sakura nodded and stood up as well after mumbling a thanks for the food. She and Kakashi were partners in the morning shift of standing guard while the workers finished the bridge. Although there was already no threat and technically they should still be resting, they still felt it their duty to be at the site just in case. It was very light duty anyway. Besides, the boys had begun training again almost as soon as they could stand up.

After a boring half-day of watching nothing, Sakura was almost grateful to see Naruto as he bounced towards the bridge. Sasuke ambled in not long after.

"I've just gotten a super good news," Tazuna exclaimed in greeting. "The bridge will be finished tomorrow!"

There was a loud cheer, noticeably from Naruto.

"Because of that," Tazuna continued, "some of the workers will go off early to do some fishing for the celebrations tomorrow."

"Ooh! I wanna help there! Can I Teacher Kakashi? Can I? Can I?" Naruto shouted excitedly, bouncing with sheer exuberance.

Kakashi laughed and nodded.

"All right!"

"Sakura stay here," Kakashi said.

Sakura groaned at the thought of another four hours of watch duty.

"Sasuke, you stay with her."

Sakura perked up at this. Sasuke looked up in surprise but one glance at the blond and he nodded.

"Naruto and I will help the villagers fish."

"Yay! I'll catch a lot of fish! Fish! Fish!"

Naruto continued his chant all the way to the beach and way into the night. With their help, the villagers managed to catch quite a lot of seafood that day.

The next day, Naruto was up and buzzing early. Although he would never tell the others, he was really excited about participating in a village celebration since he had never been to one his entire life.

Powered by the knowledge that their life-long dream would be completed, the workers made good time and by noon the bridge touched the main land on the other side.

Soon the party was underway. A photographer from the other village was on the bridge snapping off pictures of the workers and various villagers. Naruto's eyes sparkled mischievously as he saw the man.

"Hey old man how about taking a picture of the hero of the Wave country!" he shouted striking a pose he thought was heroic on the thin rail of the bridge.

"Stupid why would anyone want to take your picture?" Sasuke muttered, standing near the grinning blond.

Naruto grimaced at him.

"Yeah well someone who hates dark-faced party poopers like you!" he retaliated.

"At least I'm not a deluded person who thinks he's a hero when he's just a dead-last."

"Sasuke you bastard!"

Naruto made a flying jump that Sasuke easily evaded. The two began their routine of kicking and taunting. The villagers of both countries looked on bemusedly.

"Sasuke! Naruto! Stop it!" Sakura yelled, trying but failing to stop the two who were starting to work up a good sweat.

"Hey, hey c'mon, this is a celebration!" Tazuna said, managing to stand between the two. "Mr. Photographer why don't you take a picture of the whole group that saved us all!"

"Yeah, listen to Mr. Tazuna. At the rate you're both going, you'll be ruining the bridge when they just finished building it," Kakashi said, appearing right behind them with his face glued to his book.

Naruto's mood swung instantly.

"Yay! Picture!" he yelled practically taking up the whole view of the photographer.

"Naruto don't hug the picture!" Sakura admonished.

Naruto backed up a bit.

"We should do a cool pose!" Naruto suggested. "How about this?"

He made a scary samurai-esque face. Sakura just laughed at him.

"Naruto no one would take you seriously with a face like that."

"Dead-last," Sasuke muttered.

Naruto was about to growl back an answer when Kakashi interrupted their impending fight.

"Why don't you just go do your own poses and get this over with," he suggested as he turned over a page.

His three students looked at him. Naruto's lips slowly stretched into a wide grin.

"I think I know a good cool pose," he said.

The three looked at him as he flipped his forehead protector over his left eye. Sakura muffled a squeal as she caught on to his idea. She too rearranged her protector over an eye. The two looked at Sasuke whose eyes had widened.

"No," the dark-haired boy shook his head. "Nothing doing. No!"

"But Sasuke…" Sakura wheedled.

"No!" Sasuke stubbornly refused, a hint of pink touching his cheeks. "I'm not doing anything stupid."

"It's not stupid you bastard!" Naruto yelled, fuming. "Hmp! Let him stay that way Sakura. He'll just be plain boring Sasuke while we'll be cool copy-ninja Naruto and copy-kunoichi Sakura! Ha! And everyone will know how uncool and stupid Sasuke Uchiha really is!"

"Hey, do you guys still want your picture taken?" the photographer shouted from behind his camera. "I need to take other pictures too."

"We're ready old man! Scaredy-cat Sasuke was just slowing us!"

"I am not scared!"

"You are too! Scared and uncool!"

"You little—!" Sasuke pulled his protector over his left eye, his blush blossoming over his cheeks. "There! Just to show you I'm not scared."

He looked over at the gawking photographer.

"Just take the picture already old man!"

The man bent over, the flash flared briefly and the pose was forever immortalized. The photographer then moved on leaving behind a guffawing Naruto, a deep red Sasuke, a melting fangirl Sakura, and a very amused Kakashi.

Later that night everyone returned to a much quieter celebration near Tazuna's house. A bonfire was created and some food was roasted over the fire.

"We need to name this bridge," one villager suddenly announced.

The others nodded and suggestions started pouring out.

"Wave Bridge."

"How about Hope Bridge since it carries our hope for the future."

"How about Shinobi bridge because of all those battles that were done on it."

Tazuna-san chuckled and loudly interjected, "I have a super perfect name for this bridge!"

"Oh? What is it?"

"How about The Great Naruto Bridge?"

People stared at him then at the blond genin who was too busy scarfing down a large fish to notice the conversation. His fellow Leaf members, however, were staring at the Wave villagers as if they were crazy.

"Y'know, that's a good name," one man declared, grinning at the blond who had been elbowed in the stomach by Sakura so that he would pay attention.

Naruto looked around at the all the people looking at him. He frowned.

"You sure about that name?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto glanced at his teacher then back at the people. Tazuna chuckled again.

"The name is a sign of hope that this bridge will never crumble and will one day become a super famous bridge whose name is known throughout the world…"

Kakashi and Sakura relaxed then smiled. Sasuke just shrugged and continued eating. Naruto, still clueless about what he had missed, followed Sasuke's example and resumed wolfing down his meal. It didn't look like he was in trouble. The villagers hadn't gazed at him with cold eyes unlike the people from his hometown so he just assumed that whatever they had been discussing wasn't any of his business. Maybe he would ask Kakashi or Sakura about it tomorrow when they go home…

* * *

A small chuckle escapes my mouth.

_That was the first time that I sawSasuke blush and show a vivid emotion on his face other than anger or ridicule. But I guess this also shows just how persuasive Naruto can be._

I open the scrapbook and carefully glue the picture on it. Underneath it I also glue in a paper. I look around for a pen and find one in my drawer. Slowly I write:

_Wave Country, Summer, First Year as Genins._

**Author's Rant Corner (ARC):** First Naruto fic. Neways, please review.


	2. Graffiti

**Chapter 2: Graffiti **

I pick another picture, this one showing the three children sitting on a stone bench.

I caress the face of the boy in the forefront of the photo. Black hair, black shirt, hands inside white shorts; the boy's eyes are devoid of the usual glare sent to most people. Instead his black orbs are slyly looking at the photographer and his lips are quirking just the tiniest bit. His posture is relaxed, slouching with his right leg thrown over his left. Above him, sloppily painted on the wall, is the symbol of the Uchiha clan.

The boy in the middle is the exact opposite of the first boy in looks. If the first boy is dark, this one is the very essence of light. He wears a loud orange jumpsuit. His messy blond hair sticks up everywhere. He is squinting up at nothing, smiling like he has no care in the world. His feet are hanging just over the bench's seat. A spiral is painted above him.

A torn piece of paper is pinned by a kunai in the middle of the two.

The only girl sits at the far end of the bench. She wears a red, modified cheongsam with black tights. Her eyes are staring avidly at the dark haired boy. A soft flush appears on her cheeks. A circle with a dot in the middle like the bullseye of a target is haphazardly painted above her.

The late afternoon sun casts shadows behind their backs and shines off their head protectors that bear the mark of the Hidden Leaf Village…

* * *

Naruto hummed as he wriggled into a comfortable position, opting to pull up his legs and let his feet dangle over the edge of the bench he and his teammates were occupying. They were enjoying a brief break after a grueling half-day of training. Their teacher, Kakashi, had disappeared for a moment to get orders from the Hokage.

Naruto tried to whistle but ended up just puffing his cheeks and expelling useless air. He renewed his humming with vigor. He felt pretty good. The training had been tiring but satisfying. Kakashi-sensei had even lent them a scroll for a special jutsu. He glanced up at the piece of paper stuck on the wall they were leaning on.

"Hn. It's your fault, you know," said Sasuke, catching his look.

Naruto immediately went on the defensive. He moved his squinted eyes towards his rival and frowned.

"Hey! If you hadn't snatched it away from me—"

Sasuke glared at the blonde and replied with out-of-character childishness, "You took it away from me first, you moron!"

"Well if you hadn't been so selfish—"

"I was studying it, stupid!"

"You guys stop this!" Sakura tried to interject, but she was ignored.

"You didn't wanna share, you bastard!"

"You wouldn't have understood it in the first place, deadlast!"

"I would too! If you hadn't snatched it away from me I wouldn't have thrown that kunai at ya!"

"And thereby ruining a special scroll by tearing an important part off," Kakashi interrupted, suddenly appearing in front of the trio in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto eeped.

"Remember that you still have to pay for a replacement of that," the teacher added, although what could be seen of his face seemed to say that he didn't really much care whether Naruto paid or not.

Naruto mumbled something indistinct but stopped when Kakashi held up several cans of paint.

"By the way, we just got a mission to paint that hall over there. You have to finish it today—both the inside and the outside walls— so hop to it guys!"

Kakashi's uncovered eye arched up into a happy slit as his students grumbled but obeyed, taking several cans of paint and a brush each. He whipped out his trusted orange book and took a seat as he let the usual rants from his students wash over him like:

"Why do we gotta do stupid stuff like this" came obviously from Naruto.

"Shut up Naruto! Your whining is giving me a headache" went Sakura's normal response.

"Try not to mess up this simple task, deadlast" was Sasuke's usual one-two hit.

And the words flowed on and on.

The three trudged towards the hall used mainly for large gatherings of village officials. They stopped in front of the doors and studied it for a minute.

"Hmm…I think we should just start from various points inside and go on from there. Then we can do the outside after that," Sakura suggested. "What do you guys think?"

"Wow Sakura-chan, you're really so smart!"

Sakura flushed then looked expectantly at Sasuke. The dark-haired boy merely grunted before walking inside.

The interior of the hall was dark and somber with walls that had been recently scrubbed. It looked like another team had been assigned to ready it for Kakashi's trio to work on. The three children walked with catlike steps, the heavy atmosphere affecting them for a moment. Predictably it was Naruto who broke the silence.

"Woah! This place is so gloomy. Maybe we can paint it with some nicer color, orange maybe, to brighten up the place, you know?"

Sasuke snorted, choosing a spot to begin his work.

"I don't think the Council of Elders would appreciate meeting in a room painted in such a hideous shade," he said, putting on the first layer of white on the wall.

"Hey! Orange isn't hideous! It's a great color! It's one of my favorites!"

Sasuke spared a moment to glance contemptuously at Naruto's jacket.

"So says the freak who's color blind."

Naruto flailed his arms in annoyance. "You take that back! Besides you can't say stuff like that yourself because you like only boring colors like black or dark blue."

"I just happen to like dignified colors."

"Boring! Sasuke is boring!"

Sakura, who had been quietly brushing on the primer, suddenly stomped over and bopped Naruto's head. She had ignored the two when they started sniping at each other—that was just the normal way they could start anything—but Naruto's voice was really grating on her nerves!

"Sakura! Why'd you do that for!"

"Shut up! Just stop talking and start working!"

"But—but Sasuke started it!"

Sakura delivered another blow on Naruto's cranium.

"Well at least he's working." Sasuke attempted to appear busy as his teammates glanced at him. "You haven't even opened your can of paint. Now, get to work!"

Naruto decided that it would be to his benefit to obey his pink-haired teammate. Rubbing his much-abused head and muttering obscenities about evil bastards who suck up to people, he squatted and popped the lid off a random can and plonked his brush inside.

"NARUTO!"

The blonde started at Sakura's shriek, which resulted in canister tumbling to the side. Naruto cursed and tried to salvage the liquid pouring onto the floor. A dark shadow loomed over him just as he set the can upright once again. He cringed and looked up with dread.

"Sakura?"

"Hasn't anyone taught you how to paint before? Don't you know that you have to put on the primer first before the paint?"

Naruto frowned and eyed the cans of paint before him that all looked like white paint.

"Uhm…uhm…aren't they all the same?"

Sakura sighed crouched beside him pointing out the differences between the canisters.

"That one is called the primer, see it's written on the label. That goes first so that the wall be able to absorb the paint better and you don't have to use so much coats of paint. After putting that on, you use the real paint. If you can still see the grain of the cement after the first coat then put on a second layer of paint to even the color out."

Naruto stared at her with wide eyes. "You really know a lot of stuff, Sakura," he said, the awe in his voice extremely palpable.

Sakura blushed.

"Our house was recently repainted. I learned a lot because of that." She stood up. "Now, stop wasting time. If your brush even stops for a moment I will hit you again."

Naruto winced but nodded.

There was blessed silence for a while until Naruto noticed that he couldn't reach the upper corner of the wall he was working on. He looked around and noticed that both his teammates were using chakra to cling to the wall and solve that problem. Following their examples, he concentrated his chakra to his feet and climbed up with his dripping brush. When he had exhausted the paint off the brush he turned back down to get some more. What he saw when he turned around made his frown.

The lower part of his area had marks on them from his dirty sandals!

He heard a snicker to his side and glared up at Sasuke's smirking face. Then the dark-haired boy calmly walked back down—without leaving a single mark!

Naruto squinted at Sasuke's feet as the other boy hiked back up the wall clutching a newly opened can. When they were level with each other, Sasuke made a show of slowly lifting one foot and bringing it down about one inch off the wall, all the while looking intently at the spot he was going to cover.

"Hmp! Bastard!" Naruto muttered before adjusting his chakra so that his shoes didn't touch the paint.

Sasuke merely smirked in silent reply.

After learning the technique to working fast and avoiding sandal marks, Naruto opted to create some shadow clones to help him cover more area than Sasuke. The other boy, of course, didn't take this lying down. He also created some clones of his own to compete with Naruto's.

Sakura let them exhaust themselves, opting to labor on her own pace. She was just glad that Naruto had not started a paint-fight.

By late afternoon they had painted the whole hall, in and out.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei! We're finished!" Naruto yelled all the way from the building.

Kakashi looked up and sauntered over to his students. He eyed the freshly painted walls and nodded in approval.

"Good work."

Naruto beamed as if the words were meant just for him.

"Wait for me here while I report to the Hokage and get your payments."

Kakashi disappeared in his usual way leaving the three to clean up. Afterwards they gathered all the canisters together and headed off to sit at the bench where Kakashi had waited.

Exhausted from using too much chakra, Naruto opted to stay quiet rather than annoy his teammates. After a while his eyes drifted towards the piece of paper still stuck on the wall. Then his eyes went back to the cans of paint that they hadn't used up. Glancing from canisters to the wall, his eyes lighted up with glee. He giggled as he pushed off his seat and ambled towards the painting materials. His two companions eyed him warily as he retrieved a brush.

"What are you up to now Naruto?" asked Sakura.

Naruto just grinned, his eyes turning into slits. He took a moment to stare at the blank, dirty wall. A sudden image of the spiral on his belly came to him. He opened a can of paint and skipped up on the bench with it.

His companions stood up and edged away from him as they caught on to what he wanted to do.

Dipping the brush in paint, Naruto he began to draw a squiggly spiral on the wall. Finishing with a flourish, he stepped down and admired his handiwork.

"Why a spiral?" asked Sakura.

Naruto just snickered and offered the tools to her.

"Didn't you get punished for painting those things on the faces of the Hokages?" Sasuke asked, shaking his head at the blonde's antics.

Naruto stuck his tongue out in reply before looking back at Sakura.

"Go on Sakura! We can each draw one."

"But what if we get in trouble?"

"We won't! And it's not like this is the Hokage mountain! This is just a wall. We'll just leave a small reminder that we were here!"

Still Sakura hesitated. Naruto opened his eyes wide and stared at her with pleading blue eyes. When she still wouldn't take the proffered things, he slowly opened his mouth to try another tactic to persuade her. He ended up squawking when a pale hand suddenly snatched the two items from his hands.

Huffing in disgust at what he was about to do, Sasuke dipped the brush and quickly drew his clan's symbol to the right of Naruto's sign. When he finished, he all but shoved the can and brush towards Sakura.

"Just do it already," he growled. "The deadlast will just pester us until evening if you don't."

He then proceeded to glare at his design, refusing to look at the brightly smiling Naruto or the shocked Sakura who followed his example and quickly sketched her family's symbol on the other side of the spiral.

Naruto pouted a bit at the fact that Sasuke only had to do it before Sakura agreed with the prank. But his mood lightened up rapidly when he saw the three symbols side by side by side.

He took the can and brush from Sakura and put it beside all the other stuff, putting the lid back carefully. Then he stood between his teammates.

The three spent several quiet moments looking at their creation before sitting back down. Sakura took her chance to ogle Sasuke, who looked bored with the world. Naruto began thumping his feet in time to whatever song he was composing in his head.

Kakashi arrived not long after. He immediately saw the new art on the wall. He quirked an eyebrow at three, then whipped out a camera from one of his vest's pockets.

Sasuke was the only one who noticed him. The boy raised an eyebrow at his teacher. Kakashi's eye twinkled merrily back at him. The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes before smiling slightly.

Really! Their teacher was such a kid inside!

* * *

I can't help but laugh as I gaze at the photograph.

_That was a great afternoon to truly bond. Only meaningless words were said but the experience was enough to acknowledge that each person cared for the other._

I paste the photograph.

_Summer, Konoha, First year as genin._

**Author's Rant Corner (ARC)**: I've neglected this for so long ever since I started Daddy Rooster Head, but some of you said to continue this, so, your wish is my command.

This series is based on the posed pictures that're usually drawn at the start of each new chapter of the manga. This one is from Chapter 7.

I get my inspiration from my scanlated copy so if you wanna look, just download 'em or something. Sorry, I don't really have a good copy of each pic that I'll be going over. Also, each story might jump in time sequence and place. Every chapter is supposed to be random.

Anyway, with that said, hope you enjoy this series!

-Dragon


End file.
